Ortega elected... and he's not the only one

And the movement to the left continues in Central and South America.

[quote=“CBC: Ortega back in office”]Nicaragua’s former revolutionary leader, Daniel Ortega, seemed set Monday to regain the presidency 16 years after being ousted by a U.S.-backed rebellion.

Early election results released Monday suggest Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista Liberation Front, has easily defeated his four opponents.

Electoral watchdogs said Monday that there was little doubt of a victory for Ortega, who previously held the presidency from 1985 until he was forced out in 1990.
[…]
Since his ouster, Ortega has toned down his leftist image as a Marxist revolutionary who fought U.S.-backed Contra militants in a war that left 30,000 dead and the economy in shambles.

In an interview released Monday by the State Department, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington would respect the decision of the Nicaraguan people and wait and see what policies the next government follows before making decisions about future relations. The comments were made before Sunday’s election.[/quote]

Feet up, glass in hand, enjoying the moment. Ahhhhh… :sunglasses:

The more gov’ts committed to social justice, the better.
Of course, with Kissinger haunting the West Wing once again, who knows how long it’ll last. I mean, North Korea’s got nukes, and Iran would be too messy; maybe Chene… er, Bush will think another Contra insurgency will reinforce his Reaganesque delusions.
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Count down to the “what’s that child molester doing in office” screed. 10, 9, 8, 7…
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I wonder if his daughter voted for him?

LOL… thanks TC. The count (check the bottom of the OP) hadn’t even hit zero. LOL

[quote]Ortega didn’t make any public statements early Monday, but he said repeatedly during the campaign that he has changed. In fact, his vice presidential candidate was once one of his biggest enemies: Jaime Morales, who served as the spokesman for the Contras.

As Sandinista leader, Ortega seized Morales’ six-bedroom estate, but they reconciled after Ortega offered to pay Morales for his former home – now Ortega’s campaign headquarters.

Marvin Lopez, a 46-year-old doctor waiting in a long line at the same polling station where Ortega voted, said he feared Ortega would bring back uncontrollable inflation and conflict.

“I don’t want to return to a dictatorship, the misery, the abuse of families’ rights,” he said.[/quote]
I sincerely wish the best for the Nicaraguan people. I say we give Ol’ Commandante Ortega the benefit of doubt and see what Hugo Chavez has lined up for him.

The split ticket worked to Ortegas’ advantage, and thats politics. Lets see what happens. Just go lightly on that “committed to social justice” malarkey. Some of us have seen the Sandinista idea of that up close & personal.

True, true. Wait and see.
I’ve only seen the Sandinista ideals in action at a distance & personal, but what a clusterbuck it was having dueling church funding dueling factions in Nicaragua.

Hmmm… it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps Ortega has mellowed with age. We’ll see…

I wish the best for the Nicaraguan people.

???

Do you think that Ortega was “committed” to social justice? Careful we went through this before and those who supported the Sandinistas were left, er, rather embarrassed about some of the “facts” that they had used to buttress their views on social justice and how “good” the Sandinistas were for Nicaragua. Wanna enter the fray again on that score? I know where all the links are…

Yes, Reagan was clearly the deluded one. How foolish of him to oppose communism. But then, maybe the Sandinistas weren’t really communists? And we all know that communism is a system that is much better at delivering “social justice.” Why just look at any communist nation. The “facts” speak for themselves.

Any doubts as to whether Ortega is bad for Nicaragua were immediately clarified when Jimmy Carter “our nation’s best ex president” flew down to give his benediction. I do not believe that this leopard (Ortega) has changed his spots.

Final question: Why is it that despite all the facts, so many people continue to believe that communism or its repackaged forms of economic systems “with social justice” are credible and sustainable systems? Why is it that despite all the evidence to the contrary, Ortega is somehow seen as someone who advocates or promotes “social justice?” Please, I dare anyone to bring this issue up again. It seems as if every two years we have to fight this out and given that the last two “battles” have not gone very well for the defenders of the Sandinista movement, I see no reason to expect a different result this time, but let’s have it. Where are the facts to show that the Sandinista movement was a success? good for social justice? good for the economy? good for Nicaragua? OR alternatively prove that Ortega was NOT really a communist. OR prove that communism has worked ANYWHERE in the world. I will be waiting.

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VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!
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:moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon:

Well, for one, they certainly meted out a long overdue verdict on Somoza. There was justice right there.

HG

Okay. I will grant you that. Somoza was not the most enlightened person to come along but were more or fewer people killed under the Sandinistas? What happened to freedoms? worse or better? What happened to the economy? worse or better?

As to MT and the sophomoric frissons he so much enjoys from participating with the people in “revolution,” well, there, there, MT. I am so pleased to see that you have an interest in politics. Kind of cute actually.

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Well, for one, they certainly meted out a long overdue verdict on Somoza. There was justice right there.
HG[/quote]HGC -
Actually credit for the assassination of Somoza, just outside of Asuncion, Paraguay on 17 Sep 1980 by the way, has been credited to members of the Argentinian Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT/ERP). This was a group of exiled Argentinians, who were involved in the Nicaraguan revolution.
A bit of irony here in that this Argentinian group should decide to execute Somoza, given that one of the early actions by the Sandinistas was the repeal of the death sentence. Somoza had already fled the country and after having been denied residence by several countries, USA was one of them, he went to ground in Paraguay.
In following the further actions of this group, the PRT/ERP, it looks that their main ambition is to return to Argentina and carry on with their ‘grand struggle for peace & justice for the people.’

So the offing of Somoza really had little to do with the Sandys in the actual operation. But they were glad to have this potential adversary out of the picture.

But Fred, the Sandisinstas faced from the very outset a brutal insurgency funded and trained by the world’s largest military power and economic sanctions from the world’s largest economy. What hope was there? You simply cannot exclude that from the equation. The initially highly popular Sandinista experiment was strangled in its crib.

The Sandinistas made significant conciliatory gestures towards the US that went completely unheeded in the paranoid climate of the cold war. They were not suicidal. I believe that if left alone, the Sandinistas would have readily followed the middle road desired by its middle class elements and evolved into a social democratic party, at the very worst. With US cooperation, it could have proven a shining model for the region in a particularly bleak period.

HG

This should be good and it also should rest on shaky ground. Moralizing excusing justification…

Better check your facts. I think you will have a very difficult time backing that up.

Actually, Carter was in power. I believe that his reaction to the Sandinista win was to offer hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. Back to you. Again, check your facts. I believe that the Sandinistas won in 1979 and that the Contra funding and such did not really heat up until several years later.

So the Sandinista actions and abuse were caused by the US? Good. Then prove that. Show me where this “enemy” was in the initial years and how it justified Sandinista actions during the first two to three crucial years. Have fun!

Well, first we need to establish (and this is your responsibility) that this IS part of the equation. I will wait patiently while you assemble the necessary facts and figures. Have fun!

That statement is almost a word-for-word quote by the PR spin mills of the left. And who says you cannot tell a lie thousands of times and have people believe it? Gives me great hope for the future. haha Anyway, you’ve got some work to do. Might want to do a search on past threads to save yourself some time but unless you have something new that the others did not, I think that this will be a short conversation. Please refer to the threads on Nicaragua from nearly two years ago. The dates in question are April and May of 2005.

Great. Then you can give me the facts and figures to show that was the case. I strongly urge you howevever to reread the earlier threads on the subject to save yourself the time and trouble of having to backtrack on this. I really urge you to read up on this FIRST and then come out swinging. I will be waiting. Have fun!

Great. Then go back and show us how that did not happen because of US paranoia. Now, remember who was president now when all this was going down? Jimmy Carter… Might want to re-examine your timeline. I think that you may have a few inconvenient facts to deal with. But first, please, do go ahead and share this information with us. I will respond later but I am pretty sure that you are not going to convince anyone of this with anything that you find. But, something new may arise, so please show us what you have got. Have fun!

shining model?

Okay, let’s cut to the chase and establish a few basic things before we proceed further.

  1. The Sandinistas were or were not communist?
  2. The Sandinistas were or were not in cooperation with communists?
  3. The “social justice” of the Sandinistas was representative of similar manifestos by communist parties elsewhere?
  4. Communism has been successful where?
  5. The economic system and social-justice program of the Sandinistas were not in any way communist and therefore are unique or different from this paradigm in the following ways: please supply x case, y case and z case where relevant.

Have fun!

Sorry Fred, I work for a living. No time to to dance through your hoops.

However, I do recall that you are right on Carter’s initial support . . . as members of the old regime, armed and trained by the US up until the previous year, continued to fight a resistance movement in the countryside. Of course, US opinion changed swiftly when Reagan came to power in January 1979(?). The state of Sandinista heaven was clearly still a pup, wouldn’t you think? How long after that did Reagan sign that bill assigning millions in aid to the contras? What was the lag between signing the delivery of arms and assistance to the former Nicaraguan National guard members, that had never stopped fighting? Maybe we should ask dear Ollie North?

HG

I will take take that as a tacit admission that you a. have no such evidence to support your views, b. have read the past thread and realize that you don’t have a leg to stand on or c. are just too lazy to do a simple check.

As to the Contras and the US support…

[quote]A key role in the development of the Contra alliance was played by the United States following Ronald Reagan’s assumption of the presidency in January 1981. Reagan accused the Sandinistas of importing Cuban-style socialism and aiding leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. On November 23 of that year, Reagan signed the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support the Contras with $19 million in military aid. The effort to support the Contras was one component of the Reagan Doctrine, which called for providing military support to movements opposing Soviet-supported, communist governments.

Direct military aid was interrupted by the Boland Amendment, passed by the United States Congress in December 1982, and subsequently extended in October 1984 to forbid action by not only the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency but all US government agencies. Administration officials sought to arrange funding and military supplies by means of third-parties, culminating in the Iran-Contra Affair of 1986-1987, which concerned contra funding through the proceeds of arms sales to Iran. On February 3, 1988 the United States House of Representatives rejected President Reagan’s request for $36.25 million to aid the Contras. [/quote]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_(guerrillas

Let’s examine this time frame. The Somoza regime was overthrown in July 1979. Reagan took office in January 1981 and did not fund the contras until Nov. 23, 1981. The amount? US$19 million. That means that the Sandinistas were basically not facing a US-funded armed source for nearly 2.5 years. During that time, the Sandinistas rejected Carter’s offer of hundreds of millions in aid and chose instead to develop closer ties with Cuba and the USSR and to import massive amounts of weapons. The funding was cut off very soon in December 1982 and this was re-extended in 1984 and it was not until 1986-7 that the Reagan administration attempted to get around this by selling weapons to Iran.

You may wish to read more about the history of the Contras, which INITIALLY started out as allies of the Sandinistas in overthrowing Somoza but who became disenchanted with the power grab. Later, they were joined by disaffected businesspeople and those whose property was expropriated. Finally, the Indians that were being “collectivized” were energized to oppose the Sandinistas. It was only much later that some of the Contra leadership became in the drug business and I think that there is sufficient background on this to give the reports credibility.

Question: Where is the big US funding? What do you say to those who initially opposed the Sandinistas and the reasons why they did so? And how was the Sandinista regime “strangled in the crib?” Finally, was or was not the Sandinista movement communist? And given that communism has succeeded, er… where? might that have something to do with the economic failures of the Sandinista regime? especially given that Nicaragua had always been one of the poorest nations in the Western hemisphere?

Black is white, dogs is cats . . .

You should take it at face value, Fred. I work in the private sector these days, no more of that quasi-socialist good life and Chardonay lunches for me I’m afraid!

HG

HG,

You might want to post a link on this subject for dear old Fred as his current charity work is just a load of balls. :smiling_imp:

Bob

Now, noiw TpeBob, it is a most charitable cause!

HG

And another domino falls… to the left. :sunglasses:

[quote=“BBC”]
Ecuador’s Correa claims victory

Leftist Rafael Correa is set for victory in Peru’s presidential election.

Three exit polls and an unofficial quick count indicated Mr Correa had gained around 57% of the vote while Alvaro Noboa polled about 43%.

Mr Correa promised radical change - he opposes a free trade deal with the US and has promised to close a United States military base in Ecuador.

Mr Noboa has not yet accepted defeat, with full results due on Tuesday.

Ecuador has seen much political turmoil in recent years with seven presidents in the last decade.

The last three elected presidents were overthrown and only three since 1979 have succeeded in serving full terms.[/quote]
Ain’t democracy great? If they let Kissinghoul out of the shadows, I would if he’ll serve up another memorable quote on how the US is not bound to honor the democratic wishes of ‘unwashed banana pickers’. :raspberry:

Jaboney -
Still pining for the loss of the liberals in Canada?
You obviously have no idea of the social/political/economic situation in Ecuador.
But like a good leftist tool…you tout the party line…LAUGHABLE!